According to the FCC, your chances of being located with precision after you …

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Nine years ago Karla Gutierrez lost control of her BMW and it careened into a canal. As the vehicle slipped into the water, Gutierrez called Miami, Florida 911 on her mobile phone.

"My car is sinking!" she cried to the operator.

"Ma'am, I know," the dispatch respondent replied. "You need to calm down, OK? I know you are in the water, and you are sinking, but if I don't know where you are at, we can't help you."

"My car is sinking!" Gutierrez screamed again. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" For three minutes, the operator tried to coax her to approximate her location, then the phone went dead. Eventually first responders found her in her car, drowned.

Almost a decade later, the Federal Communications Commission says that up to 40 percent of mobile device emergency calls still don't provide immediate or quick and precise caller location data. "The inaccuracy is not just a few feet, but up to one or two miles—and sometimes no location information at all," noted FCC Chair Julius Genachowski on Thursday.

And so the agency has released tougher rules to improve your chances of being found by an emergency responder via your mobile. These regulations require carriers to certify that they're in sync with the agency's requirements for location accuracy at more precise geographic levels than before.

Tighter focus

Up until this decision, the Commission's rules required percentages of location accuracy from carriers across Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) or Rural Service Areas (RSAs). The Census Bureau defines an MSA as a "core urban area of 50,000 or more population." An RSA is a defined region in which carriers offer service to rural markets (map of all MSAs and RSAs here).

Now carriers will have to phase in location accuracy on the more precise county or Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) service area level. PSAPs are first responder agencies, and the geographic areas they serve are not infrequently the same as counties. If PSAP acronym sounds a bit vague, the FCC has a public database of them that offer a sense of what they are in real life—police departments, fire departments, hospitals, airport emergency services operations, and sheriffs offices, all with designated geographical regions to protect.

How accurate must carriers be? The Commission's current "Phase II" E-911 rules require mobiles to provide caller latitude and longitude within six minutes of a request by a PSAP. The location data has to be correct to within 50 to 300 meters, "depending on the type of technology used."

Now the agency has additional rules for networked-based and mobile-based positioning systems (the differences explained here). For networked-based mobile positioning technologies, these calls must accurately identify locations at 100 meters 67 percent of the time, and correctly at 300 meters 90 percent of the time.

Here's how the agency expects these new standards to be rolled out in the case of 100 meters.

(i) One year from [effective date of the Order], carriers shall comply with this standard in 60 percent of counties or PSAP service areas. These counties or PSAP service areas must cover at least 70 percent of the population covered by the carrier across its entire network.

(ii) Three years from [effective date of the Order], carriers shall comply with this standard in 70 percent of counties or PSAP service areas. These counties or PSAP service areas must cover at least 80 percent of the population covered by the carrier across its entire network.

(iii) Five years from [effective date of the Order], carriers shall comply with this standard in 100% of counties or PSAP service areas covered by the carrier.

For handset-based technologies, two years from now locations must be accurately identified within 50 meters for 67 percent of calls, and 150 meters for 80 percent of calls.

Carriers can, however, exempt as much as 15 percent of county/PSAP service areas (but no more) from the 150 meter requirement "based upon heavy forestation that limits handset-based technology accuracy in those counties or PSAP service areas."

VoIP

At the same time, the Commission is also asking for feedback on ways to improve caller location identifiability for "Next Generation 911" services ("NG911").

Among the questions that the NOI asks is, should VoIP providers be required to forward location data to PSAPs without the customer's "active cooperation"? The FCC's current rules don't mandate this, but the Commission has tentatively concluded that VoIP providers should be required to use automatic location technologies as do wireless providers.

This promises to be a complicated debate, with many organizations already on-the-record on the question. The Association of Public-Safety Officials and the Rural Cellular Association support the requirement, the latter calling parity between IP telephony based wireless services and VoIP "reasonable and appropriate."

The Telecommunications Industry Association thinks less of the idea. "If the FCC decides to impose similar location accuracy standards on interconnected VoIP providers that are applicable to [commercial wireless] services, the Commission would be forced to regulate the entity providing the broadband Internet connection (i.e. restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, municipalities, etc.)," the group has warned.

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Matthew Lasar
Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Emailmatthew.lasar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@matthewlasar

Carriers can, however, exempt as much as 15 percent of county/PSAP service areas (but no more) from the 150 meter requirement "based upon heavy forestation that limits handset-based technology accuracy in those counties or PSAP service areas."

Can someone elaborate on this?

Quote:

The Telecommunications Industry Association thinks less of the idea. "If the FCC decides to impose similar location accuracy standards on interconnected VoIP providers that are applicable to [commercial wireless] services, the Commission would be forced to regulate the entity providing the broadband Internet connection (i.e. restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, municipalities, etc.)," the group has warned.

In the future all those "we can't locate a pirate"* arguments will go out the window.

It is sad that someone died, but - 3 minutes of yelling on the phone instead of putting the damn thing down and getting out of your car? And not even telling the operator where you are? Yeah, yeah, panic and all, but she still dialed the number and remained on the phone...That's just... I don't know, I'm speechless.

It is sad that someone died, but - 3 minutes of yelling on the phone instead of putting the damn thing down and getting out of your car? And not even telling the operator where you are? Yeah, yeah, panic and all, but she still dialed the number and remained on the phone...That's just... I don't know, I'm speechless.

I imagine it's a lot harder to escape a car sinking underwater than the TV shows make it appear.

It is sad that someone died, but - 3 minutes of yelling on the phone instead of putting the damn thing down and getting out of your car? And not even telling the operator where you are? Yeah, yeah, panic and all, but she still dialed the number and remained on the phone...That's just... I don't know, I'm speechless.

I imagine it's a lot harder to escape a car sinking underwater than the TV shows make it appear.

I doubt the car was submerged from the get go, radiowaves don't like water very much. Even then, it's three fricking minutes where she could have, like, told where she was. I say she was too dumb to live. /Internet Tough Guy

It is sad that someone died, but - 3 minutes of yelling on the phone instead of putting the damn thing down and getting out of your car? And not even telling the operator where you are? Yeah, yeah, panic and all, but she still dialed the number and remained on the phone...That's just... I don't know, I'm speechless.

I imagine it's a lot harder to escape a car sinking underwater than the TV shows make it appear.

Anyone that drives anywhere near a waterway, or plans to on a trip should have a window breaking hammer.

Something like this which also includes a seat-belt cutter is perfect and dirt cheap.

Alternatively you could just leave a window open. Drive with the windows down, no problems if you somehow land in water. Even if you were overweight and couldn't get out via the window, that will prevent the pressure from locking your door in place. Open it right up.

However, I will have to agree, the lady that screamed for 3 minutes it pretty ridiculous.

For years we have paid money every month on our cell phone bills into the waste money fund that was supposed to fix this. Government + our money = wasted money. It's like the junk they spent the stimulus money on.

As for the woman who either didn't know where her car was or wouldn't say, I guess Darwin ate her.

It is sad that someone died, but - 3 minutes of yelling on the phone instead of putting the damn thing down and getting out of your car? And not even telling the operator where you are? Yeah, yeah, panic and all, but she still dialed the number and remained on the phone...That's just... I don't know, I'm speechless.

I imagine it's a lot harder to escape a car sinking underwater than the TV shows make it appear.

Yes, but it doesn't matter. The idea that emergency responders would get there fast enough to get her out of the car before she drowned is itself absurd. Almost anything would have been better than dialing 911.

This article's characterisation of the emergency call doesn't match that of the USA Today article that it links to. It sounds like the author has read the insert, entitled "A life is lost within 3 precious minutes", but not the actual article, the most pertinent parts of which are:

Quote:

"OK, where are you?" a Miami 911 dispatcher asked Gutierrez after she calmly explained she had driven off the road and had ended up in the water.

If you decide you need a glass breaker in your vehicle, remember that it's going to go flying when you hit the water. Most likely, it won't be where you think it should be after the impact. Either put it in some enclosed and locked space, or attach it to some kind of tether, so you can get to it when you need it.

It is sad that someone died, but - 3 minutes of yelling on the phone instead of putting the damn thing down and getting out of your car? And not even telling the operator where you are? Yeah, yeah, panic and all, but she still dialed the number and remained on the phone...That's just... I don't know, I'm speechless.

Vehicles tend to behave nicely when un-chashed. But crashing said vehicle into terrain is known to cause it to deform, deformed vehicles tend to be harder to open than non-deformed, non-crashed ones. Therefore first responders tend to bring heavy-duty tools. Crashed vehicles have a greater possibility at not being horizontally aligned, preventing normal door operation.

Vehicles (including crashed vehicles) sinking in rivers and other bodies of water tend to be harder to open than the same vehicle found on dry land.

Humans, normally they behave calmly and controlled, however that is also because they have time to think and are not submerged in water in a crashed vehicle seriously about to die. Humans in this situation tend to experience extreme levels of stress and will therefore have trouble calming down. Even extensive training can not prepare many to handle situations like this in a perfect manner, only a few will be able to lower their level of stress to a level that will allow them to calm down to a level more common toevery-day life.

Generally speaking humans have not evolved to supply our friends with precise location data in response to fear and panic, human friends have always tended to be close – shouting distance close. Fight or flee has served humans well for over a million years.

I have only worked tangentially in this field, but i general there is a huge over-confidence in regards to ones abilities in emergency situations and my bet is that next time something like this happens the person is more likely to behave as Karla did than not. 911 units know this and sadly there is little to do for them but try different methods to gain clues to the exact location.

To sum up: An accident is chaos and humans are prone to panic when in life-threatening situations.

It is sad that someone died, but - 3 minutes of yelling on the phone instead of putting the damn thing down and getting out of your car? And not even telling the operator where you are? Yeah, yeah, panic and all, but she still dialed the number and remained on the phone...That's just... I don't know, I'm speechless.

Vehicles tend to behave nicely when un-chashed. But crashing said vehicle into terrain is known to cause it to deform, deformed vehicles tend to be harder to open than non-deformed, non-crashed ones. Therefore first responders tend to bring heavy-duty tools. Crashed vehicles have a greater possibility at not being horizontally aligned, preventing normal door operation.

Vehicles (including crashed vehicles) sinking in rivers and other bodies of water tend to be harder to open than the same vehicle found on dry land.

Humans, normally they behave calmly and controlled, however that is also because they have time to think and are not submerged in water in a crashed vehicle seriously about to die. Humans in this situation tend to experience extreme levels of stress and will therefore have trouble calming down. Even extensive training can not prepare many to handle situations like this in a perfect manner, only a few will be able to lower their level of stress to a level that will allow them to calm down to a level more common toevery-day life.

Generally speaking humans have not evolved to supply our friends with precise location data in response to fear and panic, human friends have always tended to be close – shouting distance close. Fight or flee has served humans well for over a million years.

I have only worked tangentially in this field, but i general there is a huge over-confidence in regards to ones abilities in emergency situations and my bet is that next time something like this happens the person is more likely to behave as Karla did than not. 911 units know this and sadly there is little to do for them but try different methods to gain clues to the exact location.

To sum up: An accident is chaos and humans are prone to panic when in life-threatening situations.

You must be the world's #1 dad/mom, teacher, or preacher. Your wisdom and intelligence are only surpassed by your patience.

I took this opportunity to re-read some articles on how to escape a sinking car. (Apparently: ASAP -- don't wait for pressure equalization -- and through a side window.)

Actually, I saw Myth Busters do a show on it. Their solution was to wait for pressure equalization if the door was jammed. Of course, this only works if you're not panicking.

Well, what I read said that the pressure will probably not be "equal enough" until there is no more air left in the car (the car will list over to the front, an air bubble will remain longest in the back of the car). Escaping through the window, on the other hand, will always work as long as you can fit through the window. And since apparently you can climb through the water pouring in, you may be able to escape before the car has sunk to the ground.

Almost a decade later, the Federal Communications Commission says that up to 40 percent of mobile device emergency calls still don't provide immediate or quick and precise caller location data. "The inaccuracy is not just a few feet, but up to one or two miles—and sometimes no location information at all," noted FCC Chair Julius Genachowski on Thursday.

I had a police officer knock on my door at 9AM on a saturday. He said there was a open 911 cell call from a 859 area code which is Northern KY. He said the signal was bouncing around the subdivision and couldn't accurately place where it was. They never did find out where it came from. That was about 3 weeks ago.

Carriers can, however, exempt as much as 15 percent of county/PSAP service areas (but no more) from the 150 meter requirement "based upon heavy forestation that limits handset-based technology accuracy in those counties or PSAP service areas."

Can someone elaborate on this?

_sounds_like_ - they exempt areas where there's heavy tree cover... GPS doesn't work so well unless you have clear line of sight (no obstructions) to a fairly wide slice of the sky. the more satellites you can "see" the more accurate your position. my little handheld can only see a few (4-5) satellites when I'm in an area with tall buildings (you need a minimum of 3).. it can see the ones directly overhead, but can't see the birds close to the horizon. accuracy downtown is maybe a hundred meters, accuracy on the beach or the top of a hill is in feet (I can see maybe 8-10 birds)

If you decide you need a glass breaker in your vehicle, remember that it's going to go flying when you hit the water. Most likely, it won't be where you think it should be after the impact. Either put it in some enclosed and locked space, or attach it to some kind of tether, so you can get to it when you need it.

for you turds claiming darwin or "why didn't you just..."go watch the mythbusters episode again - even in a TOTALLY CONTROLLED environment (uninjured, clear/warmish water, emergency divers on hand and emergency O2 with Adam) - he still felt the panic as the car was filling up.

Carriers can, however, exempt as much as 15 percent of county/PSAP service areas (but no more) from the 150 meter requirement "based upon heavy forestation that limits handset-based technology accuracy in those counties or PSAP service areas."

Can someone elaborate on this?

_sounds_like_ - they exempt areas where there's heavy tree cover... GPS doesn't work so well unless you have clear line of sight (no obstructions) to a fairly wide slice of the sky. the more satellites you can "see" the more accurate your position. my little handheld can only see a few (4-5) satellites when I'm in an area with tall buildings (you need a minimum of 3).. it can see the ones directly overhead, but can't see the birds close to the horizon. accuracy downtown is maybe a hundred meters, accuracy on the beach or the top of a hill is in feet (I can see maybe 8-10 birds)

Mobile phone positioning does not use GPS. It is uses multilateration which estimates where you are based on the relative signal strength at multiple cell towers. Of course, trees can interfere with cell signals just as much as they can with GPS, and if you are in an area where you are lucky have good signal on a single tower, that makes it hard to determine your location to any accuracy.

Sounds like she was a typical BMW driver - spent three minutes yelling into a phone (without giving any details) instead of trying to get out. Did she really think that even if the emergency services had her precise location, they would have reached her in time?

We've been thinking about ditching the landline, so I figured I'd call the (non-emergency number) police to see whether they had any advice/information. The person I spoke to seemed pretty confident in the 911 system's ability to get location info from a cell phone. Did say that providing the address right away would be a common-sense thing to do. They don't have any sort of registry for home address for cell phones or anything like that, such as has been (attempted/tried/implemented?) for VOIP.

This article's characterisation of the emergency call doesn't match that of the USA Today article that it links to. It sounds like the author has read the insert, entitled "A life is lost within 3 precious minutes", but not the actual article, the most pertinent parts of which are:

Quote:

"OK, where are you?" a Miami 911 dispatcher asked Gutierrez after she calmly explained she had driven off the road and had ended up in the water.

Boy. Five years after spending Christmas Eve (and a week thereafter) searching for a lost loved one who perished from a stroke because the emergency GPS service on her cell phone failed to give even a close read on her location, it’s somewhat disheartening to see this headline. One would hope the technology has improved to a point where this isn’t a discussion anymore after all this time.

(To be fair, this was a densely wooded area covered more in logging “roads” than public roads. To be fairer, the area had several cell towers, and the search party—which covered about 100 square miles at one point—never had any signal issues. To cause even more frustration and devastation, she was found in between three cell towers, within easy reach of all of them. It was simply a failure of technology; Verizon et al had her about five miles west by southwest of her actual position.)

Carriers can, however, exempt as much as 15 percent of county/PSAP service areas (but no more) from the 150 meter requirement "based upon heavy forestation that limits handset-based technology accuracy in those counties or PSAP service areas."

(snip)

(snip)

Mobile phone positioning does not use GPS. It is uses multilateration which estimates where you are based on the relative signal strength at multiple cell towers. Of course, trees can interfere with cell signals just as much as they can with GPS, and if you are in an area where you are lucky have good signal on a single tower, that makes it hard to determine your location to any accuracy.

It doesn't use GPS... unless it does. I'm pretty sure that's what "handset-based technology" (my markup) refers to. Makes sense to use (A)GPS where available to get increased accuracy. And it's not inconceivable to have a phone that's only logged into a wireless network without positioning information where GPS is the only source of information.

I am not sure what Google Maps uses on my wife's phone for location, but it is off from her actual location by a mile while at home.

It probably uses something like SkyHook, which determines your position based on what Wifi hot spots are around. This is much less precise than what the cell providers can do using U-TDOA or E-OTD. To get this level of accuracy, the cell company makes multiple signal strength measurements using their network of towers. The phone sometimes helps by making signal strength measurements in the opposite direction. However, without knowing the exact position of the all towers, the phone itself cannot determine position from these measurements - it just transmits the measurements and provider combines all the information to obtain a solution.

Thus, in general this position information is not available for your use, unless the provider creates some service to transmit the solution back to you. The providers that have only provide a watered down service compared to what they provide for emergency response and law enforcement.

I'm hoping for more improvement in cellular location than this by now. How many of us are cutting the cord at home? I did. Yeah, I know my own address but it would still be valuable if 911 services could auto-detect my location. Just in case I can't speak or whatever.

911 here has a database where they record your home address so it is associated with your cell phone number. It wouldn't help in the situation described in the article, but at least if you call and manage to relay that you are at home the police will know which door to knock on.

This reminds me of a local problem recently, where all 911 calls on AT&T mobile phones were being routed to the 911 responders in Seattle, who couldn't provide timely help for people in Salt Lake City.

Boy. Five years after spending Christmas Eve (and a week thereafter) searching for a lost loved one who perished from a stroke because the emergency GPS service on her cell phone failed to give even a close read on her location, it’s somewhat disheartening to see this headline. One would hope the technology has improved to a point where this isn’t a discussion anymore after all this time.

(To be fair, this was a densely wooded area covered more in logging “roads” than public roads. To be fairer, the area had several cell towers, and the search party—which covered about 100 square miles at one point—never had any signal issues. To cause even more frustration and devastation, she was found in between three cell towers, within easy reach of all of them. It was simply a failure of technology; Verizon et al had her about five miles west by southwest of her actual position.)

Sorry to hear that, but the problems listed in the article using GPS do bring up two interesting points. The use of GPS for incarceration purposes. The other is the introduction of both the European and Russian GPS as well as other error correction technologies.

This a single story, however, there are a bunch of morons out there. Its a sad conclusion for a story like this. Its Darwinism folks. There are TOO many victims in the USA and the World. You gotta fight for your rights and your life! If you dont, a stronger person will take your place. In a car you have at least 6 windows to try breaking and at least 2 doors to open in water. The military conducts practice drills for a reason.If she had called 911, then was told they dont know where she was and she replied "why do I pay E911 fees on this cell phone then F@ck You" I would have a great deal more sympathy.

I hope you are joking, most I hope that for your own sake because this comment makes you look like a sad and ignorant person. You probably are not, but this comment suggests otherwise.

Among the questions that the NOI asks is, should VoIP providers be required to forward location data to PSAPs without the customer's "active cooperation"?

I feel like calling 911 is implicit permission for your provider/emergency services to do anything in their power to find your location. In fact, it would be smart to require all GPS enabled phones to force on GPS location when 911 is dialed, regardless of the user settings.

This article's characterisation of the emergency call doesn't match that of the USA Today article that it links to. It sounds like the author has read the insert, entitled "A life is lost within 3 precious minutes", but not the actual article, the most pertinent parts of which are:

Quote:

"OK, where are you?" a Miami 911 dispatcher asked Gutierrez after she calmly explained she had driven off the road and had ended up in the water.